


Touching Marble

by stinkyfic



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Carnivale (The Terror), Closeted Character, Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, Flirting, Gen, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, The Terror Bingo, Victorian Attitudes, also stanley may or may not still set himself on fire later? up to you, clownsir makes a return in my fics once more, harry is confident and mischievous as is his right, roll up to the carnivale we have repressed homosexuals and suicidal doctors, sinful exploitation of blind mans buff, stanley is formidable but also...kinda hot, this is literally just an excuse for shenanigans, tozer is a himbo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29972094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stinkyfic/pseuds/stinkyfic
Summary: Harry had heard of people who would wear blindfolds during intercourse, and he was regrettably reminded of this fact as he stumbled forwards into the red emptiness in front of him. He felt awfully vulnerable, and Harry wondered why anyone would want to feel this way and also want to be naked? He felt naked enough right now even with his clothes firmly on.Harry Goodsir is unwittingly pulled into the marine's game of Blind Man's Buff during the carnivale- which is embarrassing enough as it is, but it's even worse when he learns the forfeit for guessing a man wrong is tokiss him!.And, of course, who should he manage to grab a hold of other than his formidable and uptight superior doctor, Dr Stanley...
Relationships: Harry D. S. Goodsir/Stephen S. Stanley
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15
Collections: The Terror Bingo





	Touching Marble

**Author's Note:**

> _Fill for **TheTerrorBingo** prompt: A Mercy ___  
> Enjoy some drunk carnivale shenanigans, something a bit more light for this ship after the last angsty one I wrote!

Harry Goodsir had only been to a handful of lavish balls in his lifetime, and that figurative handful was dilapidated as it was. The carnivale was unlike anything Harry ever had the pleasure of witnessing. It was boorish and loud, full of testosterone and Allsopp’s ale. The smell of gun oil and lantern grease filled the air, travelling over the bizarrely decorated heads of the men and catching in the heavy sails that had been repurposed as roofs and walls.

The marines had formed their own little group of partygoers. They were by far the most passionate of all the men, liquored up and guffawing at each other, shouting various inside jokes to each other from the bar. They were electric in their presence, and a lot of the other ABs flocked to them in hopes of being involved in their antics.

This was where Harry was now, standing on the outskirts of a crowd that had formed, cradling a tankard of Allsopp’s with both hands and generally looking very out of place. He was enjoying himself though, watching the men laugh with each other and poke fun at each other’s inventive costumes.

Harry had only decided to dress up at the last minute. He had been preoccupied with his research all day and so was about to leave in just his regular uniform- until he saw Dr McDonald. He had travelled to Erebus for whatever reason, and Harry had glanced him and Dr Stanley discussing something in the sickbay, amazed to observe that McDonald was dressed as a Pierrot clown. Stanley had seemed immediately irritated, but Harry was lingering in the dark hallway, unable to make out what McDonald had been saying to him. Eventually Stanley made some comment and McDonald had passed him a bundle of cloth and a small brown box, and Harry realised that McDonald had- somehow- convinced Stanley to dress up.

That cemented it then to Harry- if the aloof Dr Stanley could dress up then Harry had no excuse.

The theme for the doctors had been clowns- decided by the Terror duo- and Harry felt rather ridiculous for it. He supposed it was fitting. But he felt self-conscious in his beige ruff and itchy makeup. His hair, which was overgrown and worn without a hat, kept sticking to his face, and he was fast becoming annoyed with it.

Harry was leaning with his back to the end of the bar, half concealed by three or four men that were stragglers, broken away from the bigger crowd that the marines had drawn in front of him. They were playing parlour games, which was hilarious since this party had the furthest atmosphere from the civilisations of the parlour. The game was blind man’s buff, and the forfeit for guessing a victim wrong was to deliver an- often overly theatrical- kiss. There was an uproar of loutish ecstasy as the marines forced one another to engage in such an embarrassing forfeiture, and Harry found it bizarre that the most hypermasculine group of the crew would find so much pleasure in emasculating themselves. He supposed that’s what lad culture was like, always up for some form of banter or initiation ceremony. Harry would never know, since he had never felt like he really belonged in those circles.

He wasn’t familiar with any of the marines, and he often confused them between Erebus and Terror, but as Harry watched through the slats of people in front of him, he was sure that the one blindfolded right now was the sergeant on Terror. Tozer, was his name? He had the most recognisable accent, and his frame was broad and tall. He appeared to be dressed as some sort of Arthurian knight, a white tunic with a coat of arms was worn over the striking red of his uniform. He was making a show out of lunging for people, who were bellowing various shouts and throwing harmless insults to rile him up. The marines and ABs dodged delightedly from him, leaving him in a state of hilariously growing frustration.

Harry couldn’t help but smile as he watched them, he was fuzzy with ale and warmed by the oil lamps that dotted the tent, and in that moment everything seemed fine. It all seemed normal.

The Allsopps swirled around in his tankard and Harry cast his eyes to it, watching it as he continued to swill the liquid with small movements of his wrists. Harry had never been fond of loud spaces, they made his skin feel overly tight, filled his ears with too many sounds all at once until he felt like he was suffocating- but tonight was different. Perhaps it was because it had been so long since he had been in the company of other men who weren’t sick or unhappy, and it was a welcome change. One his body needed rather than shied away from.

Harry was pulled from his hypnotic gaze into his swirling ale by the sudden figure that had loomed over him. He hadn’t realised the crowd had moved from him, and now he was the only one at the foot of the bar. Harry looked up into the face of the blindfolded marine with a sudden bolt of panic, but it was too late, Sergeant Tozer had already sensed his presence and made a valiant noise as his large hands clasped either one of Harry’s narrow shoulders.

“Aha!” Tozer celebrated triumphantly, he seemed incredibly proud of himself. Immediately the marines lit up with a round of jeers and japes, positively ecstatic that Mr Goodsir was suddenly drawn into their little game.

Harry held his breath immediately, ale threatened to spill over the edge of his tankard as Tozer maneuvered his hold on him, clapping him on the arm in an oddly reassuring gesture, smiling widely and drunkenly.

“Oh, I’m not-” Harry was about to explain that he wasn’t playing, but Tozer interrupted him with a sort of bark-like noise, communicating that Harry wasn’t allowed to speak. Harry felt his face flush a little, embarrassed that he was somehow breaking the rules of a game he wasn’t even a part of until now. This man’s grip on him was wholly unwelcome.

“Nah, I’ve gotta guess who you are!” he grinned down at Harry blindly. Harry vaguely wondered if the sergeant would be treating Harry with the same amount of zest if he knew who he was holding. Harry never considered himself a popular man amongst the laddish culture on the ship. He felt horribly out of place now, between the paws of this big man with his blood red uniform and caramel hair, as if he were caught in a gang of popular boys back at school.

“Right then!” he was speaking loud enough for his mates to hear; his accent really was atrocious. Harry had never been to Liverpool in his life, but he used to know a fellow back home who studied with him and spoke in the same fashion, all garbled consonants and phlegm and plosives. There was a certain poetry to it, but not the kind that Harry could decipher. “Who can _you_ be?”

Despite himself, Harry couldn’t help but laugh as the sergeant’s hands began feeling across his shoulders, meeting with the beige ruff around his neck and grasping it with a slight look of confusion in his brow.

“Oh, you’ve got a ruff? Or somethin’?” The marines hooted as Tozer made his guesses. He turned to them slightly even though he couldn’t see them, as if he were an actor in a play, addressing his adoring audience. “Well, then you must be one of the clowns, ey? The doctors?” The men cheered; their shouts all jumbled over the other. Harry looked up at Tozer expectantly, his knuckles gripped white onto his tankard of ale. He admitted that he was enjoying this, though, watching him struggle to guess. He assumed Tozer probably didn’t know any of the doctors by name.

A clammy hand came up to hold Harry’s chin, uncoordinated and harsh- smudging through the greasepaint there. The marines whooped. Harry gasped quietly, finding the touch rather rude and intrusive. He supposed he should expect no less from a marine, they never seemed afraid of brotherly contact. He felt his jaw clench a little under his grip, his head lifting up on his shoulders in an odd sort of defiance. Suddenly more like a weighed slab of meat in this man’s hands than a valuable party guest. Harry forced himself to realise that this was a part of the game and calmed with the thought. He didn’t like this popular man touching him though, afraid he would feel his inadequacy through the pores in his skin.

“Oh, you’ve got enough hairs on your face to start your own business!” Tozer exclaimed, much to the marines’ delight. Harry wasn’t sure what business the sergeant was referring to, perhaps a _beard_ business? Idiot. “Well, you’re not McDonald or that snobbish one…whatshisname?”

Harry couldn’t help but smile at that, he privately hoped Dr Stanley wasn’t within earshot, but the marines and ABs in the know erupted into laughter at the comment.

“You must be either Peddie or that other lad?” His hands moved back to Harry’s shoulders, noticeably not as friendly as before. “And you’re not tall enough for Peddie, I don’t think!”

 _Oh please, I implore your Mr Sergeant, try and remember my name._ Harry smiled coyly up at him, lifting his tankard to his lips and taking from his ale as Tozer’s grin seemed to freeze into his face. Glorious. Some creeping sense of ‘the upper hand’ found its way into Harry’s being.

Harry was so caught up in the hilarity of this man completely forgetting his name that he himself had forgotten that Tozer would have to follow through with a forfeit if he guessed wrong. He remembered then with a small frisson of panic. The Marines and ABs seemed to absolutely relish in Tozer’s struggling silence, taunting him with made up names.

“ _It’s a good thing you’re not posted on Erebus, Sol, or the doctor would probably slip you a permanent nightcap for forgetting his name!_ ” one of them shouted. Tozer laughed weakly, lost in desperate thought, truly racking his brains.

Harry didn’t bother to mention that he wasn’t a doctor, or that euthanising someone for forgetting his name was not part of his oath. Although, he figured, it sounded as if it were something Dr Stanley would happily partake in.

 _It’s a good thing_ , Harry idly thought, _that Tozer hadn’t grabbed Dr Stanley’s chipped upon shoulders and proceeded to call him ‘Dr Snobbish Whatshisname’_.

_Yes, Dr Snobbish Whatshisname (Chief Surgeon) is ready to see you now. His office is just right down the hall, thank you for waiting. Try not to be dazzled by his glittering personality._

“You’re that…uh…” Tozer was chewing the inside of his cheek, face frozen in stale excitement.

“…yes?” Harry felt confident that if he hadn’t guessed now, then Tozer hearing his voice wasn’t exactly going to help him along.

“You’ve gotta be the little one, on Erebus?”

 _Little!?_ Harry was 68 inches tall, thank you very much. That was 175 centimetres. He had measured it himself. Admittedly it was back in the surgeon’s college, and after a particularly scathing comment from one of his superiors about him being small and underfoot. He was only about an inch shorter than the sergeant, for christ’s sake!

“We are almost standing at the same height, sergeant.” Harry felt that his voice was clipped, not as soft as he would have usually offered. Tozer let out the most raucous laugh, as if Harry had told the first joke in recent history.

“Oh, you _are_ that little one!” It was if he were talking to only himself and his marines, as if there were some awful joke about Harry that he wasn’t privy to. “I always knew ya had a sense of humour in ya!”

“Lucky me…” Harry’s voice was flat, and Tozer seemed to find it even more hilarious. “Then you should have no problems remembering my name?” Tozer stopped laughing; the men seemed besides themselves.

“Ah, now, you can’t expect me to remember the name of a doctor on a ship I’m not posted at!” Tozer wet his lips with well-hidden nerves. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would be afraid of insulting anybody, but then, Harry might be wrong.

“I’m sure you don’t want to kiss me, sergeant.” Harry braved, a smile picking at the corner of his lips. The marines burst into tumultuous laughter, one of them wolf whistled. Tozer was going very red, almost matching his uniform.

“Nah, nah, your name is something long…something weird, like.” Tozer was talking very quickly now, almost indecipherable in that accent. His hands were twitching where they bore onto Harry’s shoulders. Harry chose to ignore the undesirable comment about his family name.

“ _Go’oaan Sol, pucker up_!” one of the marines shouted.

Harry had to admit that he didn’t much fancy being made a spectacle of either. He looked up into the blindfolded eyes of the sergeant and decided that enough was enough.

“Goodsir.” He said in a voice quiet enough for only Tozer to hear. Barely moving his lips. “It’s Mr Goodsir.”

Tozer’s face broke out with a smile, all tension melting away from his brow. Okay, fine, he was handsome, Harry supposed, if one were interested in men who were a bit dim- of which Harry wasn’t. Wasn’t inclined towards men _at all_ actually, pastor; father; God himself. No sir. Harry had also never told a lie in his life, not one.

“ _GOODSIR_!” Tozer shouted, way too loudly, into Harry’s face.

There was a huge round of applause, and yet more boisterous cheering. The sergeant lifted his blindfold from his eyes, giving Harry a toothy grin as he squinted against the bright lights. He pulled the blindfold around his neck, struggling with the knot at the back for a minute. Harry realised he was using it as an excuse to linger.

“Thanks for that.” He glanced conspiratorially into Harry’s face. Harry offered him a meaningful smile, letting his gaze lower back into his tankard of ale.

“Consider it a mercy, sergeant.” _It was your stupid idea for a forfeit in the first place._

“Ay, well…” He seemed confused by the sentiment, but he smiled all the same. “Much obliged, sir.”

Harry often forgot about his postings as an officer, it was bizarre to him that this man would be calling him ‘sir’. He frowned a little into his ale.

“ _Right then_ !” Tozer was talking in a raised voice again, performing to his people. He had unknotted the scarf from his neck and was holding it aloft. The men cheered as if it were some woven trophy. “Mr Goodsir, _step up_!”

“I beg your pardon?” Panic ran down Harry’s spine, dropping cold in his stomach. He hated hearing his name spoken so loudly amongst these men, it triggered some deeply forgotten fight or flight response.

“Oh, don’t you know the rules, doctor?” Tozer smiled lopsided, looking at Harry ( _not a doctor!_ ) from askance. “Your turn…”

“Oh, I surely don’t…” But Harry was cut off as Tozer gripped his upper arm. His ale was taken from him, and he was manhandled to the middle of the crowd before he could hope to protest. “I really don’t think-!”

“ _Go on, doctor_!” One of the men shouted, interrupting him.

There were several jeers and claps, and Harry ( _again, not a doctor!!_ ) realised with some surprise that these men were actually elated to have him in their little parlour game. He had never once felt so included in any activity in his life. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not, especially as some of the men were looking at him in such a way that made him feel like he was a boy again.

Harry was within the centre of the crowd as they cheered, feeling very small. The blur of red and black and the odd accent colour from various costumes closed in on him, dizzying as they blended into obscurity, moulding simply into [A CROWD]. Harry wasn’t sure if he even recognised any of their faces.

“Gentlemen, really, I can’t-!” but Tozer was behind him, holding his shoulders in place with those hands again, and before Harry could protest any further his vision was turned to a muted red as the blindfold was placed over his eyes.

“Come on, doctor!” Sgt. Tozer bellowed good naturedly. Harry ( _Still not a doctor!!!_ ) felt his head jerk back slightly as a knot was tied, catching a few strands of his thick curls painfully. “You’re a clown for tonight! Entertain us!”

“That’s not-” but Harry was being moved then, twisted round. Tozer was turning him by the shoulders until he spun in a circle, over and over again. The room danced through the blindfold in a haze of red light, a kaleidoscope of a sunset.

The voices of the men shot in and out of earshot, Harry caught a comment on the wind about just how far a ‘Mary-Anne like him might go to entertain the lads’ and it made his stomach instantly sink. He still, painfully, didn’t belong amongst these men. The spinning was suddenly a vortex, cold sweat and panicked breath whipping past his own cheek, the hard trunk of the sergeant’s body within brushing distance. Was he ever going to stop?

He stopped. The lights poking through the red of the blindfold continued to turn, dashing past Harry like lanterns on a train. He lost his footing a little and couldn’t help but laugh, kind of empty and horribly insecure. Tozer’s hands were on his shoulders again. He was caught up in the cheers from his fellow men, loud and sour breathed with ale in Harry’s ear.

“Arms out, doctor, off you go!” Tozer’s voice was pleasant, garbled, his hands wrenching at Harry’s biceps to hinge his arms up and out in front of himself. Needlessly rude in his manhandling- however unintentional it was. Before Harry could judge where he was properly, he was given a powerful shove between his shoulder blades.

Harry had heard of people who would wear blindfolds during intercourse, and he was regrettably reminded of this fact as he stumbled forwards into the red emptiness in front of him. He felt awfully vulnerable, and Harry wondered why anyone would want to feel this way and _also_ want to be naked? He felt naked enough right now even with his clothes firmly on.

Harry took a moment to get his bearings, although it was near impossible. The colours around him were muted to crimson, as if there were a film of blood on his eyes. The sounds were heightened, loud and aggressively jovial. Men’s bellowing voices hit him from all angles, guiding him this way and that. His own breath was loud and rabbit-fast in his ears, arms still outstretched like a beggar. A blind clown, now there was a funny sight.

“ _Move then!_ ” a man shouted, and his friends laughed. They didn’t sound nasty, not like that voice Harry had glimpsed while he was being turned. He hoped he didn’t find himself trying to guess the name of whoever that had been.

_Excuse me sir, are you the one who called me a Mary-Anne? Lovely, well now I will just have to forfeit you with a kiss. No? Well, that’s the game!_

_Pucker up, you bastard. I’ll show you “Mary-Anne”._

Harry has started moving, shuffling along as if afraid of falling over himself. He was still horribly out of balance, but he was slowly becoming steadier and surer in his footing.

The problem with a game like this being played by a man like Harry was that he hated imposing himself on people, and this game was practically all about that. All he had to do was catch someone and guess them, and then this would all be over, and he could go back to his little corner with a fresh pint of ale.

 _But aren’t you having fun, Harry?_ He found himself thinking as he neared the voice of a young man and heard him scuttle away with a shout of hilarity. Harry was laughing as well, merely at the foolishness he felt in his own situation. _Yes, maybe._

The bodies around him parted with every step he took, and there was a sudden power shift in the way that he had felt before. No longer did he feel naked and vulnerable, now he felt as if he were dangerous, valuable, noticeable enough for these men to watch his every move in anticipation.

“ _Over here, sir_!” a voice cracked, a young man again. He was close to Harry’s left, and Harry straightened up with a coy smile, stilling his movements, listening for the man. He could hear a ripple of laughter travel to his left, and he spun on his heel, grabbing, but only coming up with thin air.

“ _Oh, better luck next time_!” another voice, deeper and older, said behind him. Harry tilted his chin in a way he hoped communicated he was still hopeful.

“I do believe you’re all cowards.” Harry laughed. He couldn’t quite believe he said that, but any anxiety he might have had about calling these brave men cowards was dissolved as the room erupted into gleeful laughter, the taunts doubling in frequency and volume.

One of the men poked Harry’s ribs as he passed him, and Harry made a very undignified noise, feeling a stab of pain burn pleasantly up his side. He tried to follow the source of the knuckling, but only found open air.

 _You little bugger._ He thought fondly, smiling wide with all his teeth.

“Good grief, I didn’t realise this was such a demanding job!” Harry had never been this outspoken in so much company before, but the blindfold had placed him in his own realm of privacy, and he felt free to act as he wished. If he imagined hard enough, there was only him in the room.

The blindfold had a powerful smell of gun oil and greasepaint. Harry vaguely remembered that he was adding his own mixture of paint onto the fabric right now and wondered if this scarf belonged to anyone important. He toed around the room, feeling wind rush past his fingertips as more and more men moved out of his way, laughing all the while.

Another prod at the small of his back made the muscles spasm and a tight laugh caught in his throat before it peeled from his mouth. His hands flew to his back as if he could catch the culprit still attached to him. Of course, he wasn’t. Harry twisted his body round to front the attacker, but only met with more shouts and clapping hands. It really was a little overwhelming.

Harry heard a small commotion off to his right, a hushed conversation and the sounds of men moving into one another. _That’s a shabby excuse for stealth_ , Harry thought. He took full advantage and twisted his body at the waist towards the noise. 

Finally, _finally_ , his fingers brushed fabric, and he held on for dear life. He was at an odd angle and the pads of his fingers hurt his nails with the power he was gripping onto the small slice of clothing he had come into contact with.

Harry heard the men give an uproarious shout, it passed through the room, full of delight and anticipation. Harry moved to face the victim fully, hanging off him for a second before adjusting his grip. The victim was perfectly still despite being caught, and if it wasn’t for the body heat Harry might have thought he had grabbed onto a coat stand by mistake.

“Here we go!” Harry shouted triumphantly- well, he shouted as loud as he was confident enough to. His voice only hardened in tone, not really in volume. But, goodness, this person was _tall_.

_Oh._

There were only two people that Harry could think of that were as tall as this: Dr McDonald; a lovely Scotsman on Terror of whom he liked a lot, and he knew liked Harry; and Dr Stanley; a standoffish and overly reserved man whom Harry both worked with and spent most of his time avoiding.

If those two things didn’t sound possible to do at the same time, then you come to realise Harry’s day-to-day struggle. Dr Snobbish Whatshisname, a man who wasn’t unlike a cipher, a fragment of a villain housed in a powerfully broad frame with thinning hair and arms powerful enough to tourniquet a limb simply by leaning on it; a man whose curiously handsome face held feline eyes so inflamed with hatred that he could cauterise a wound only by looking at it. An ice burn personified, a wholly unpleasant and equally formidable gentleman.

Harry rather fancied him.

It had to be him, he was as stiff as a garden rake, frozen in place by Harry’s tight grip on him. The man must have been passing through the crowd to exit the tent, or maybe to go to the makeshift bar. That’s what the commotion had been.

If Harry didn’t feel foolish before, he definitely did now.

The group behind Harry that had previously been so loud and boisterous now appeared hushed in anticipation as they watched Harry come to the discovery that, yes, he was holding each lapel of his tall and emotionally constipated superior.

“Well, well…” Harry spoke, as if he didn’t know exactly whose coat it was that he was now smoothing his hands down. Something in the back of Harry’s mind clicked on, humming to life.

It was mischief- something he hadn’t felt since he was a boy back home.

The doctor was notorious in his awful bedside manner. Uptight and downright rude, upsetting to patients young and old. When he was supposed to soothe, he stayed quiet, and when he was supposed to stay quiet, he filled the room with miserable monologues on how foolish the patient had been. Truly dreadful. Harry found himself often as a spectator, cringing on the side-lines of such instances. And these mannerisms didn’t stop with patients, oh no, they extended to Harry himself.

Harry had spent many an evening listening to the doctor drone on about how Harry should have used this treatment, or this book, or ‘ _oh, have you read this unpronounceable crucible? It’s really out of your intellect. Perhaps you do not have the attention span for it, Mr Goodsir._ ’ The man was as officious as he was tall, and he was very near a giant.

The reasoning, as far as Harry was collecting it as it buzzed around behind his blinded eyes, was if this man was such an incessant cramp in his leg, then why not use this moment as an opportunity to ‘get even’?

Everyone within a mile radius of Erebus knew that the doctor had the emotional depth of a teaspoon and so Harry delighted in the idea of just how Dr Stanley would handle such a deliciously awkward situation. He might very well just walk away, but he was far too concerned with his image for that, he wouldn’t want to appear improper in front of the men, in front of the fellow _officers_.

“Who have we _here_?” Harry faked, his smile bright and easy but with a bite of impending tomfoolery.

He ran his hands easily up the tall man’s shoulders. He wasn’t that untouchable after all, then. In fact, Harry found it very easy to place his hands on either one of those powerful shoulders, he didn’t even have to stand on tiptoe to do so. The way the doctor moved, one would think he was a modern goliath, but actually he was very manageable.

Well, that was a lie, the man was massive. Harry’s head barely reached his collar. Whenever he moved close into the man during work- of which he was sometimes forced to do because of the overcrowded space, _not_ because he wanted to, you must understand- Harry’s vision was swallowed by the white wool of the doctor’s waistcoat. He found he often stood there dumbly in these moments, waiting for his vision to return when the doctor moved away from him, utterly and stupidly entranced.

Their situation wasn’t dissimilar at the moment, except this time Harry’s blindness was of his own terms. Sort of.

The crowd behind him had whipped back into their whooping frenzy, cheering and taunting. The noise emboldened Harry.

“Well, there’s only a few men as tall as you, Sir.” Harry soothed his tones, faking ignorance but unable to stop a smile twisting into the corner of his mouth.

He let his hands mimic the movements that sergeant Tozer had used on him, pushing his fingers along the man’s shoulders, aiming for the ruff that he knew would be sat on the doctor’s broad chest. A fuchsia thing with blue and gold trimming, soft and silk, about as garish on this utterly straightforward man the way a rotten tooth looks garish in a mouth of fine teeth. Harry had glimpsed Dr Stanley in his getup earlier in the night, he was like a phantom with his fully white face paint and lazily thrown together outfit. Less like a clown and more like a china plate.

Harry felt the hot wool of the doctor’s coat burning along his fingertips, relishing in the simple contact of the man. He may not have admitted it to himself, but he had somehow always hoped for an opportunity to touch this man. He always seemed so unattainable, like a marble sculpture in a museum that you weren’t allowed to stand too close to, to reach out to, to caress.

Harry had imagined touching this man multiple times- nothing sordid, goodness! - just simply reaching out and making contact. In these fantasies he could never shake the persistent itch that this man would be cold and hard, smooth as stone and unresponsive. That Harry would reach out to his face and be met with the ungiving bite of steel rather than skin.

But Dr Stanley was actually rather warm and pliant. Hot, even. _Burning up_ , actually.

There were streams of roguish whoops and laughs from behind him, and Harry could only imagine that Stanley’s face looked a picture of fury. Or perhaps misery? Or maybe he was _embarrassed_? What a lovely thought.

“Oh, I do believe you’re one of us!” Harry announced, grabbing hold of the ruff and feeling it sliding between his fingers. He felt the doctor’s chest rising and falling rather unmeasured under his knuckles, his shoulders stiffened even further. If Harry were to rise to his toes, he could no doubt feel the doctor’s hot breath ghost over his face- but he wouldn’t do that.

“You-” Dr Stanley started to speak, his voice was hard and thin as if he didn’t want the other men to hear him. Harry immediately barked a noise to silence him, the same way Tozer had done to him. So, it was definitely Dr Stanley then.

“Now, now! Don’t go spoiling the surprise!” Harry silenced and the men behind him cawed their amusement. He had never felt so bold in his life, his heart was hammering with it, fingers tingling.

Afterall, Dr Stanley wasn’t to know that _Mr Goodsir_ \- the Mr Goodsir who Stanley figured was so far from his intellectual equal that he would be out of his depths in a small puddle- knew exactly who he was holding onto, knew exactly whose coat he was pushing his knuckles into, whose silken ruff he was sensuously running his thumbs over as he gripped it. He wasn’t to know any of that. Dr Stanley would be gleefully quick to think that Harry was blissfully unaware of his surroundings, that he was drunk on ale and simply just being unprofessional. Oh yes, he would jump twice his own height to come to that conclusion. He would sing and dance for it, if the man could move his body in any way that wasn’t to and from his bedchambers.

Ergo, Harry was free from consequence- and it only came with the small price of the doctor thinking he was a fool, of which he would think anyway without any assistance.

“Well, I only get one guess at this, so I better make sure!” Harry chirped, his brows were quirked in an amusing manner, but he figured Dr Stanley couldn’t see them for the blindfold. A waste of good mischief, really.

Harry ran his hands over the width of the ruff, feeling the material get warmer the higher it sat, picking up heat from the doctor’s neck.

“Wouldn’t want to guess _wrong_ now! Are you aware of the awful forfeiture?” Harry’s hands squeezed at the material of the ruff, feeling the doctor stoop a little as the material pulled around his throat. He smiled widely, as if he were unaware of what he was doing. A hot puff of the doctor’s breath ghosted through his hair. “Really a quite nasty business…” Harry didn’t say it as if it were nasty _at all_ , in fact he purred it, as if flirting. Now, _that_ in itself was a dangerous game to play, but Harry played it as easily as a winning hand of cards.

His hands came up then, bold as brass, and found the hot skin of Dr Stanley’s face, once again only mirroring what sergeant Tozer had done to him- nothing out of line here, no siree. His face was surprisingly soft, the greasepaint that made up his (anti)clown face had dried and tightened his skin, making it feel as soft as suede- not marble at all. He felt Stanley’s jaw clench, the muscles flickered against his fingertips in a way that made Harry’s stomach swoop into his bowels.

“Hmm, now who could it be?” Harry laughed along with the men behind him, who were obviously enjoying Dr Stanley being put in this situation just as much as Harry was. The doctor’s face was gloriously hot as Harry gently pushed his fingers along the hard bones of his cheeks, feeling his pads prickle as they passed over the thorns of a less-than-smooth shave under the paint. “Well, you’re clean shaven, so you can’t be Dr Peddie!” he lilted, ashamed to realise he had risen to his toes a little to better map out the striking bone structure of the taller doctor.

He felt the slight brush of Stanley’s arms as they came to cross in front of his chest. Harry wondered if that was the doctor’s way of restraining himself, he imagined that Stanley might very well be fantasising about pushing Harry away right now- and that wouldn’t be _proper_. Or perhaps he was self-conscious? Harry almost scoffed at the ridiculous notion. This man wouldn’t be self-conscious even if he were bollock naked.

_Now there’s a gruesome thought… enough of that! Back to the task at hand, Harry!_

Harry had always admired the way Dr Stanley’s face was put together, from a distance of course. He would never have dreamed of being this up-close-and-personal with the doctor, except for those moments of lapsed professionality when he had to stand close to the man. His jaw was strong, his cheekbones sturdy and high and swooping into deep ocular bones that gave him striking shadows under his eyes. His nose was wide and straight, Harry could feel hot air steaming from it now like an angry ox, brushing his knuckles as he pressed the backs of his fingers over the hollow in his cheeks, feeling the hard bones of his teeth sitting underneath. He was pushing his luck.

“You might be Dr McDonald, with a jaw like this!” Harry made sure to raise his voice in question, to make certain that the men didn’t take this as his final answer. The men laughed, truly a Shakespearean audience behind him, relishing in the dramatic irony. ‘ _If only they knew the true dramatic irony of this situation’_ , Harry thought.

“You know who I am, Goodsir…” Stanley’s voice cut through the crowd. Low and deep in his chest, said through gritted teeth. There wasn’t a chance in heaven that anyone except Harry had heard him, he was so carefully levelled and close to Harry’s face. It felt very private. Very intimate. Harry breathed the ghost of a laugh, turning his hands over to place each palm directly onto the doctor’s cheeks, hot and clammy against his paint-smoothed skin.

“Oh my, I don’t believe I heard you!” Harry had definitely heard him, and Stanley knew this. That lovely jaw was tightly wound under his hands. “I hope you weren’t _breaking the rules_?” he added, grinning.

“You’re doing this on pur-” Stanley started, but Harry cut him off again with another easy-going laugh. He moved his thumb and accidentally found the corner of the man’s mouth, and that very quickly halted the doctor into silence. It almost halted Harry’s heart.

“Oh, it’s such a shame this damned party is so _loud_!” Harry teased, ignoring the impulse to ‘accidentally’ slide his thumb further over the thin lips of that scathing mouth of his. As if to demonstrate Harry’s statement, the men behind him continued to roar with jokes and hilarity.

“ _You’ll get the shock of yer life, lad, if you guess this wrong!_ ” one man said, followed by laughter.

“ _Aye, more like a kiss o’ death from that one, doctor!_ ” said another, and the room was positively filled with glee.

“Goodness me, they don’t seem to have much faith in me, do they?” Harry addressed Dr Stanley but was loud enough so they could all hear. There was a unanimous and hearty agreement to that fact. The doctor’s breath was warm and wet against the nail of Harry’s thumb. He felt out a small crumb of paint that sat in the crease at the corner of Dr Stanley’s mouth and mindlessly brushed it away. A secretly hidden gesture that spoke volumes only to the man who received it.

“Well, you definitely have a _handsome_ bone structure!” Harry continued in his steady monologuing, delighting the sailors. He was complimenting the man in a way that- at a cursory glance- could come across with the same laddish teasing that the marines applied to each other. There was no dallying here, simply the flirt of two men trying to rile up the other. Nothing more than that. Verbal roughhousing with your thumb resting on the hard line of another man’s frown. “Which only makes me think you might be the amiable Dr McDonald even more!”

It was true, Dr McDonald did have a lovely handsome face- nearly everyone knew it. They may all be men alone in the wilderness, but they weren’t _blind_. Well, except for Harry, who was very much blinded at the moment, caught in the heat from his own face as his morals got looser and looser.

“ _Make a guess, then, Sir!_ ” One of the men shouted behind Harry, and the rest of the men rumbled with growing excitement, thunderous with a similar mischief that now ran up Harry’s spine.

“Okay, okay!” Harry stilled, mercifully taking his hot hands away from the doctor’s cheeks and tangling them within his ruff again. “I think you are…” he pretended to think for a split-second, biting the inside of his cheek.

“Don’t do this, Mr Goodsir.” Stanley’s well-hidden voice twisted across the space between them once more. It didn’t sound like a plea, more like a warning. His voice was low, his accent bright and clipped. Harry ignored him, but he smiled in a way that he knew told Dr Stanley that he had heard him loud and clear.

“Well, you’re obviously a _doctor_!” Harry continued, holding the ruff up in his hands a little as if to illustrate the point. The men cheered behind him, letting him know he was on the right track.

“Whatever I have done that has upset you…” Stanley snipped in again, and for a moment Harry was struck dumb by the thought that this man might actually offer him an apology. “I assure you I am capable of much worse if you follow through on this.” No such luck.

Goodness me, he wasn’t a happy gentleman.

“Now, let’s see…” Harry continued, face hardening a little at the warning, only working to further convince Harry in his journey to humiliate this man. Did Dr Aloof truly think that he could soften Harry with a threat? The man maybe wasn’t as intelligent as he let on. “…Tall, clean-shaven, good jaw…” he pushed his luck a little with that last one, it was obviously a flirt and Harry silently hoped that none of the men thought too much about it. Harry Goodsir, the ‘Mary-Anne’, making comments about taller men’s jaws.

“What point are you trying to make, here?” Dr Stanley’s voice was thinning out, peeling from the back of his throat in what was unmistakably desperation. Lovely. Another statement aptly ignored by Harry.

“Well, you have to be the kindly Dr McDonald on Terror!”

There was an explosion of laughter from behind Harry, to the point where he couldn’t have heard if Dr Stanley had made a complaint even if he wanted to. Harry feigned ignorance, looking around blindly behind him with a confused smile.

“Oh dear, was that not correct?” his voice was sweet as treacle, summoning up a feeling of foolishness to coat his vowels, to give his act some conviction.

“ _Far from it, doctor!_ ” a voice, one of the marines, said very close behind Harry. Harry almost startled out of his skin when he felt the blindfold being pulled from his eyes, the knot yanking at the hair caught there in a painful reveal. It slipped easily over his head, his eyes were immediately assaulted with the bright lights of the room- lights that had seemed so dim and atmospheric before now drilled into Harry’s retinas like catching the sun through a magnifying glass. “Good Christ, warn a man!” His voice wasn’t very soft anymore, feeling his eyes tear against the bright. The marine chuckled.

Almost immediately he looked up and _up_ into the face of Dr Stanley. Harry had only seconds ago held his warm and very _human_ face in his hands, and yet now it looked as if the man was cut from marble. All hard angles and fierce lines. His eyes were molten, glowing with the warm light of the room and giving the impression of glass reflecting fire- glaring down into Harry’s face as if he had just made a pass at his wife.

_Okay, Harry, act surprised. You didn’t know it was him, remember?_

“Oh! Dr Stanley!” The gravity of his situation hit Harry like a blow to the head. It was all fun and games behind the privacy of his blindfold, but now, face to face with the stern doctor- and coming to the rapid realisation that he would have to follow through with the forfeit for guessing incorrectly- Harry realised he had truly bitten off more than he could chew. “Goodness me, but _of course_ it was you!” Despite himself, Harry couldn’t deny the fact that he was ever so slightly excited. It tingled up his spine.

The men around him whooped and hollered, fading into obscurity as Harry continued to look up at Dr Stanley- who, in turn, offered him an unmoving expression, arms still tightly folded in front of that broad chest of his. He seemed to be weighing up his options, although Harry didn’t know what he thought his options _were_.

“ _Well, you know the rules, doctor!_ ” the marine said from behind Harry, he was one of the men who were posted on Terror, so Harry didn’t know his name, but he was a dark-haired lad- reasonably handsome if not a bit drunk.

Dr Stanley cast his gaze behind Harry to the marine, a look of absolute contempt glittered in his eyes and pursed his lips into a hard line, like a cut in his face. Harry supressed a smile as he heard the marine spluttering behind him. The poor lad wasn’t as familiar with this look as Harry was, even less so being as he was on Terror and not Erebus.

“Sorry, sir! That’s the rules the sergeants made!” he squeaked, and the rest of the men backed him up, not even trying to hide the glee in their shouts- forcing the doctor to partake. Stanley was fast realising that there was no way he could glare his way out of this without lowering morale of the men- which, as a doctor _and_ an officer, was well against what was expected of him.

“Come now, doctor, it’s only a silly thing!” Harry tried, giving him a bruising smile. Stanley’s eyes flicked down to him as quick as a page turning, barely blinking, his stiff posture only going to convince Harry that he must have been internally floundering. The doctor took a breath, lifting his chin so as to better observe Harry down the bridge of his nose.

“Of course _you_ might say that.” There was a bite to his voice. An animal lashing out when they find themselves cornered.

Harry chose to ignore the implications of that comment, but it hardened his nerves with a flash of anger. Right, well, if that’s how he wanted to play it…

“Don’t flatter yourself, doctor…” Harry bit back, taking a step closer to the man.

Dr Stanley seemed incredibly taken aback by that, his mouth hanging open suddenly like a stupid, tall fish. Harry moved closer, making the men roar, placing his hands firmly on each of the doctor’s shoulders and leaning into him until he was close enough for only Dr Stanley to hear his voice. He was the picture of practiced geniality, all pleasantry twinkling in his eyes, pushing the doctor down onto the balls of his feet so he could reach him better.

“There’s better flesh for me than you.” Harry’s eyes were cold, he passed them over Dr Stanley’s dumbstruck face and then added, as if an afterthought: “ _Doctor._ ” Harry knew his words stung; they prickled his tongue as they left his mouth. If Harry were to actualise this forfeit, then he would only be able to do so with the advantage of the upper hand. He would have to sedate Dr Stanley first with his sharp tongue before he could even dream of coming any closer to the man. And that’s exactly what he did. Like taming a wild cat or breaking in a work horse.

Stanley was in shock, and when Harry kissed him, his mouth was slack and easily lead. It was only a peck, something for appearances sake alone. His stubble burned pleasantly against Harry’s chin, his mouth twitched beneath Harry’s as if he wanted to say something, or move away, or do _anything_. But he was unable to do little else other than stand very still as Harry pressed their lips, closed and chapped, together for a mere millisecond.

The men around them burst into tumultuous cries of laughter, clapping and teasing, taunting at the hilarity of two men doing this sort of thing. _What a strange game this is_ , thought Harry, and was immediately led into considering if any of the other men were of his persuasion, and were forced into looking at their own desires as if they were nothing but a punishment for other men in these moments. And perhaps they were.

The kiss was over in a moment, the smell of the doctor’s face paint and the hint of alcohol on his breath was removed from Harry’s nose as he returned back to the flats of his feet.

“There now!” Harry chimed, looking up and removing his clasping hands from the doctor’s shoulders. “We are suitably forfeited.”

Dr Stanley was very pale and very still. Even as the men moved around him, patting Harry on the shoulder and taking the blindfold from his hands, he remained motionless, looking down at Harry. There was no discernible expression on his face, his eyes taking on the empty glint of a polished button, his hands tightly digging into his own forearms where they were still crossed.

Harry could hear some of the men shouting, they were rallying the game further on behind them. One of the marines was laughing very heartily, the noise rattling through Harry’s skull.

“…Sir?” he tried, his voice barely rising above the bustle. Had he broken this man? Short-circuited his brain? His teeth were grinding down so hard that his jaw was visibly moving, but his eyes remained oddly calm, as if purposefully controlled.

Dr Stanley blinked a few times in quick succession, he seemed to be about to speak, but then a marine grasped his shoulder- a braver man than most- and his mouth clamped further shut. He didn’t even bother looking at the marine, simply continued to look down at Harry.

“Are you up for the next go, Dr Stanley?” The marine imposed, his voice full of ale and cracked from laughing.

Without answering, Dr Stanley shrugged the touch from his shoulder, and turned away. He unfolded his arms and plunged them deep into his pockets, storming from the tent in a fashion that made nearly everyone dart out of his way, like a steam train pushing through fog.

Harry was left speechless, staring after the doctor without the faintest idea of how to react.

“Miserable bastard.” Muttered the marine, and- a little shocked- Harry let his gaze snap to him. He gave a small laugh in agreement as the marine shook his head and returned back to the crowd.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!  
> I'm not sure if this is a Stanley-Doesn't-Do-THAT-au so you can make your own minds up!  
> I feel like this has potential for a smutty sequel so maybe one day that will happen!  
> you can find me on:  
> tumblr [@dragonwycks](https://dragonwycks.tumblr.com/)  
> twitter [@stinkyarttt](https://www.twitter.com/stinkyarttt)  
> If you enjoyed this please consider leaving a comment!


End file.
